I know it’s been a bit longer than I said I would be away for. It’s been a bit of a journey getting from there to here, and i think y’all deserve a proper explanation for the duration of this hiatus.

Most of the responses to this story have been lovely and encouraging, even despite my lack of proofreading. Most readers have really enjoyed what I’ve written, and that means a whole lot to me. Some readers, however, have been quite a bit more critical, and while some of them have been easy to ignore, some of them have been a bit harder to do so.

The protagonist of this story is nonbinary. I am nonbinary. These facts are related, and so everyone complaining about “pronouns” and other related issues in the story have also been complaining about my existence and my identity. As you might expect, that has been very difficult to deal with, and the association of those comments with this story have led to me feeling very uncomfortable continuing to write it.

However, I have discovered some lovely queer stories here on RoyalRoad and some lovely writers and readers who are more encouraging of such things. Going forward, I will be taking a more stern stance towards deleting any queerphobic comments on my chapters. Going forward, I will be taking better care of myself when it comes to people saying these things about my story.

Going forward, I will allow this story to be true to myself without allowing the disparaging of others to get me down.

For those that have been supportive of this little story, thank you so much. It means more than you know.

New chapter on Monday.